Novel Design Concept for Blast- and Seismic-Resistant Civil Infrastructures

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Design for blast resistance has been so far considered primarily for military structures. Some of the design target levels include high-thrust, high-penetration, and high-yield missiles with or without nuclear capabilities. While designing to these levels leads to conservative and costly structures if applied to the protection of the public infrastructure, recent events around the world have shown the vulnerability of civilian infrastructures to blasts of low-yield non-nuclear capabilities. These events have also confirmed the need to develop construction methods that can safely and economically be implemented in standard design practice. It can also be shown that blast-resistant structures are designed with a very different philosophy than seismic-resistant structures, and rightfully so, because of the different nature between blast and seismic loads. As such, new design philosophies are necessary that can overcome this contradiction in requirements. New methodologies are currently needed for the design of structures to simultaneously resist blast and seismic loads because of recent concerns in homeland security and the new zoning of the US seismic maps, which have increased seismic demands over a larger area of the US. Under this scenario there is a lack of professional education in the aforementioned research areas, and as such universities around the nation must develop courses that can provide the necessary expertise in blast and seismic protection of structures, and meet future design and engineering needs. The professional goals of the PI are to develop research and educational initiatives that can provide the PI with the necessary tools to; (1) enhance his understanding for simultaneously designing structures to resist blast and seismic demands, (2) develop collaborative research and education programs with other engineering centers and private industry, such as the Maneuver Support Center located in Fort Leonard Wood (MANSCEN) and Douglas Taylor Devices, Inc., and as importantly (3) recruit graduate students that upon graduation can transition to national laboratories and engineering firms specializing in the area of homeland security. In the first CAREER proposal submission the PI has proposed a novel design concept for the blast- and seismic-resistant design of civil infrastructures. However, due to the long-term costs and time commitments necessary to develop the overall design concept, the main goals of this Small Grants for Exploratory Research (SGER) are three fold: o To analytically evaluate the novel design concept at the component level before extensive experimental and analytical research are carried at the sub-system and global-system level. o To recruit one master graduate student to assist the PI during this exploratory phase. o To introduce the design concept at conferences that deal with blast and seismic issues that can provide the PI with the necessary feedback on this research initiative.